Sorry state of affairs as Indonesia faces the ghosts of its past

Mohamad Achadi, a former minister in Indonesia's Sukarno government who spent 12 years as a political prisoner under Suharto. Photo: Michael Bachelard

UNLIKE many of his countrymen, Mohamad Achadi cannot forget the bloodbath that attended the birth of the modern nation of Indonesia.

For 12 years in the 1960s and 1970s, he languished in prison while outside the country's leader, Suharto, was consolidating his power with the massacre of 300,000 or more people.

Achadi's only crime was to be a minister in the cabinet of Suharto's predecessor, Sukarno. Those who died in the massacres were Communists, left-wingers and anyone else Suharto perceived as an enemy.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Photo: Reuters

It was just the first of many atrocities during Suharto's 32-year regime. Kontras, Indonesia's Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, has identified 11 different sets of killings, including the invasion of East Timor, the suppression of separatists in Aceh, the violence in West Papua.

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But now, inspired in part by Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations of indigenous Australians, the current President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, wants to make amends, to acknowledge the past crimes of the Indonesian government and apologise to the victims.

Dr Yudhoyono and his advisers have gone quiet since raising the issue last week, but Usman Hamid, a Kontras activist who has been involved in three years of official discussions over the issue, believes the President is genuine.

Dr Yudhoyono, known throughout Indonesia as SBY, has told confidants that he wants it as part of his legacy after his term ends in 2014. It is rumoured that he hopes to be appointed UN secretary-general in 2016, and an apology, it is believed, could only help.

According to Mr Hamid, however, there are many hurdles still in the way.

Even talking about past human rights abuses has raised the awkward issue of Indonesia's current crop of political prisoners, particularly from West Papua, Mr Hamid told the Herald.

The existence of these 30 or 35 people ''undermines Indonesian democracy'', and the only way to resolve it would be to release them - a policy the military would be likely to oppose.

''The first step should be to talk with the military and police and make sure they are willing to support the policy of release of political prisoners,'' Mr Hamid said.

''Of course, there is some debate about that.''

The military no longer has a formal role in politics in Indonesia, but it still wields considerable influence. SBY is a former army general, as is at least one of the potential candidates for the 2014 election.

From 1965, the army carried out Suharto's dirty work and most in the military are still taught in their academies that the victims, members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), were to blame for the violence. So powerful has this propaganda proven that there are still no left-wing political parties in Indonesia, and it remains a criminal offence to teach Marxism and Leninism.

In this culture of forgetting, former political prisoners still suffer from a deficit in civil rights.

Wiryanto, the son of another Sukarno minister, Setiadi Reksoprodjo, says his family, like hundreds of thousands of others, had their land and other assets stripped from them and never returned. After their release, prisoners were denied work and public servants were excluded from government pensions. They were forced to seek permission for international travel and had trouble obtaining loans.

Until 2005, Wiryanto's father's identity card, which all Indonesians must carry, had the letters E.T. (for eks tahanan politik, or former political prisoner) stamped in the corner, so every official who checked it would know his shame.

''Being labelled PKI was worse than the condition of a bastard child,'' Witaryono told the Herald.

The courts have not helped. Nurlan was a prisoner who witnessed torture and spent the rest of his career as a journalist hiding behind a pseudonym, Martin Aleida. He tried suing for compensation, but the court said it was not its place to intervene.

Victims do not want an empty or partial apology, such as those made by Dr Yudhoyono's predecessors, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Abdurrahman Wahid. They want a public acknowledgement that opens the way to compensation, and to have their full civil rights restored.

''The idea [of the apology] is how to have an entry point for a general rehabilitation policy,'' Mr Hamid said.

But for Dr Yudhoyono, sorry still might prove too hard a word to say. His father-in-law, Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, was one of the generals centrally involved in the massacres. (He once boasted that 2 million people were killed, ''and we did a good job''.)

Muridan Widjojo, an activist and author of the Papua Road Map, says political prisoners such as Filep Karma are serving up to 15 years in prison.

''If you express the apology that's fine, but the violence, the oppression [is] still going on. If the conflict is still there, it means nothing,'' Mr Widjojo said.